163 
mouse and the rat we found in the miserable huts of the fishermen 
upon the lone rock of St. Paul in the Indian Ocean as well as 
in the large sea ports on the coasts of all parts of the world. They 
will follow in the vessels all over the sea, through all climates, 
settle down with man wherever he settles, as unwelcome com- 
panions, and as a troublesome plague. Upon New Zealand, the 
European rat lias totally exterminated the native rat Kiore, which 
used to be eat eh by the Maoris. 
Without following a sytematic order we pass over to the 
class of the Amphibia* The total absence of serpents, tortoises, and 
— with the exception of a frog but very recently discovered, 1 — 
also the absence of the batrachians is peculiarly striking. The 
lizards are represented by most harmless creatures despite the fables 
current among the natives about terrible dragon-like Ngararas. There 
are at present in all eleven species known ; 2 five of them belong to 
1 The only place as yet known as the home of frogs are the environs of the 
Coromandel Harbour on the East side of the Hauraki Gulf (Province Auckland, North 
Island). There a very peculiar species is met with in the small creeks rising in the Cape 
Colville range; also in swamps, but always as a great rarity. The first specimens were 
discovered in 1852 (Edinburgh New Philos. Journal, 1853). I brought with me two 
specimens that had been collected by the natives; they have been described by 
Dr. L. J. Fitzinger in the Records of the Imperial Zoolog. Botan. Society in Vienna 
(series of 1861), as Leiopelma J/ochsleUert. They come nearest to a Peruvian species, 
Tdmalobius peruvianas Wicgm. , and belong to the water or common frogs. It is 
strange, that the natives formerly did not know this frog. 
14 The eleven species known are: 
Eulampus (Hinulia Gray J ornalus Fitz. 
Lamprop/iolis ( Mocoa Gray) Moco Filz. 
„ ,, „ Smithii Filz. 
„ ,, grandis . 
Hoplodaclylus ( Naullinus Gray) pact ficus Fitz. 
„ „ „ Grayi Filz. 
„ „ „ cleg ans Filz. 
,, „ „ punctalus Fitz. 
„ „ „ granulalus. 
Dactylocnemis Waller slorfd Fitz., house-gecko, anew species named, after 
the chief-commander of the Novara Expedition. 
llalteria punctata Gray , Ruatara or Tuatara of the natives, a leguan, 
the largest lizard in New Zealand known. 
The discoveries, however, do not seem to be confined to the species hitherto 
known. Taylor (Te lka a Maui p. 409) mentions a reptil of 4 feet length resembling 
